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"Here comes the commander," he cautioned uneasily. A great blond Viking of a German in the uniform of a captain shouldered heavily through the doorway and, acknowledging the salute of the rat-faced subaltern with a bare nod, stood looking down at Lanyard in taciturn silence, hostility in his blood-shot blue eyes. "How long since he wakened?" he asked thickly, with the accent of a Bavarian.
They could see only the high hill of rock and snow, at the base of which they stood shoulder high in their mud cellars. Ten yards to the rear of them was what looked like a newly made grave reverently covered with pine boughs. Through these a rat-faced young man, with the receivers of a telephone clamped to his ears, pushed his head. John T. McCutcheon. John F. Bass. Richard Harding Davis.
He shook the frightened man until Brisley's broad-brimmed bowler was shaken off, revealing the receding brow and scanty neutral-colored hair. "We let Scotland Yard work night and day, and then we present our rat-faced selves to Mr. Monte Irvin and say we have 'found the lady' do we?" Another vigorous shake followed. "We track Chief Inspectors of the Criminal Investigation Department, do we?
When he put the proposition up to McGivney, the rat-faced man guffawed in his face. He found it so funny that he did not stop laughing until he saw that he was putting his spy into a rage. "What's the joke?" demanded Peter. "If I'm ruined, where'll you get any more information?" "But, my God!" said McGivney. "What did you have to go and get that kind of a girl for?"
Turning round we saw a little rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while Breckinridge, the salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure. "I've had enough of you and your geese," he shouted. "I wish you were all at the devil together.
The rat-faced soldier uttered an angry exclamation. "To hell with the rules!" he cried. "We can't waste time on him. Turn him loose!" The older man rounded on the little one savagely. The tone in which he addressed him was cold, menacing, sinister. His words were simple, but his eyes and face were heavy with warning. "Who is running this?" he asked. The little soldier muttered, and shuffled away.
Guffey was in charge of the job; as in the Goober case, the big business interests of the city were going ahead while the government was still wiping the sleep out of its eyes. Would Peter take a job spying upon the Reds in American City? "I can't!" exclaimed Peter. "They're all sore at me because I didn't testify in the Goober case." "We can easily fix that up," answered the rat-faced man.
That was the real business! That was going after these criminals in the way Peter had been urging! The rat-faced man answered that it was nothing to what they were going to do in a few days. Let Peter keep on his job, and he would see! Now, when the public was wrought up over this dynamite conspiracy, was the time to get things done. Section 55
"You must go to that meeting yourself," said the rat-faced man. "You mustn't take any chance of their suspecting you." "But, my God!" cried Peter. "What's going to happen there?" "You don't need to worry about that," answered the other. "I'll see that you're protected." The gathering was to take place at the home of Ada Ruth, the poetess, and McGivney had Peter describe this home to him.
Scraggs Phineas P. Scraggs, to employ his full name, was precisely the kind of man one might expect to own and operate the Maggie. Rat-faced, snaggle toothed and furtive, with a low cunning that sometimes passed for great intelligence, Scraggs' character is best described in a homely American word. He was "ornery."
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